Make returns with all-new plans for Paddington student housing

The latest 20-storey proposal for Unite Students and building merchant Travis Perkins will provide 605 students bedrooms housed in two linked blocks. Travis Perkins, which currently has a yard on the site, will be provided with a new facility on the ground and mezzanine levels within the scheme.

In 2021 Make submitted plans for a stepped, 22-storey (95m) block with 843 beds on the plot which sits between the Grand Union Canal and the Westway flyover.

The practice subsequently updated the scheme, reducing the maximum height to 20 storeys and the number of bedrooms to 768. But in early 2022, Westminster City Council refused the amended plans. Planning officers warned that the 26,000m² proposal would have a ‘significant negative impact’ on the amenity of residents next door, adding that ‘the benefits [were] not considered to outweigh this harm’.

A planning report considered the effects of loss of light on five surrounding residential buildings and found that 956 windows would lose light, 25 per cent of which would no longer meet BRE criteria for vertical sky component (VSC), a measure of light levels.

Design progression: original 2021 scheme; refused 2022 scheme; submitted 2024 scheme

The planners claimed the 2022 scheme, which received 82 objections, would also have ‘an unacceptable impact in terms of an increased sense of enclosure’ at Sheldon Square.

Now, two years later and after various rounds of consultation, the team has submitted a fresh design to the local authority.

The reworked project for students at Westminster-based King’s College London has moved away from a single structure layout, instead featuring ‘two carefully designed, distinct and separate buildings’ connected by a podium level.

According to the design and access statement, a brick-built ‘gable end’, the last remaining ‘original element’ of canalside architecture at this location, will be ‘retained and celebrated’.

The scheme provides a new canal-side path, creating ‘for the first time’ a continuous link along the canal’s north bank between Maida Vale and Paddington.

A spokesperson for the development team said: ‘Purpose-built student accommodation frees up private shared homes for rent by families and key workers.

‘We went back to the drawing board with this updated design and carried out a comprehensive nine-month pre-application consultation, which included public forums, meetings, workshops and exhibitions.

‘We also maintained a permanent consultation hub close to the site, with regularly updated models of the emerging proposals.’

The application was submitted at the end of May and has already received 25 objections.

If it is approved, construction is expected to start in 2025 and take two and a half years to complete.

Source:Make Architects/design and access statement

Make Architects’ all-new Baltic Wharf designs, featuring 605 student bedrooms, submitted to Westminster City Council in May 2024